Building a company can be a daunting prospect. With hundreds, if not thousands of competitors in any given field, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. How can you achieve your goals and not just build a company, but a successful one?

The solution, says Nitro Games CEO and co-founder Jussi Tähtinen, is to focus not just on a strategy but on vision and values.

Tähtinen breaks vision down into four parts – games, success, team and story. The vision is the company’s overall ambition, whereas the strategy is how Nitro Games hopes to achieve those goals. Any strategy a company puts into play, Tähtinen argues, should be in service of the company’s overall vision. “How does doing this get us to where we want to be in the end? And if that answer isn’t clear to everyone in the room, it’s better not to do it at all.”

The value of good business

In terms of values, Tähtinen states that they need to be agreed upon by the company as a whole – not just the executive team but the employees. By doing so, Tähtinen and his team have created a company that attracts employees and gamers alike.

“Strategies are a compass in a way. They tell us where to go and where not to go. Values are what steer the ship,” stated Tähtinen.

“In order for us to execute our strategy towards our vision we want to make sure we live up to our values every single day.”

By defining the company’s values and vision, Nitro Games has managed to build a company of thousands of employees worldwide, and this year celebrated fifteen years in the business.

“When you have a clear culture, clear values, and you make sure everyone follows those, everything becomes clear.”

Today may be the last day of PGC Helsinki, but we’ll be continuing to write about the event over the coming weeks.